Excess capacity? Really? Where?

At this point Martin Crilly’s report on Translink’s 10-year plan is ancient history in blog years, but I’ve been talking about Translink’s lack of capacity on Broadway and I think that, more than anything else, has coloured my reaction to Crilly’s report. Crilly’s interesting big-picture claim was that Translink’s plan to attract riders by adding more and more capacity to the system isn’t working on its own and is getting too expensive besides. He recommended that Translink look to policy levers for managing the demand for transit. Which is a genteel way of saying, “Make driving more expensive, so more people can’t afford it and demand for transit goes up.” Do that, and more people will take transit.

But Crilly’s argument only works if there’s enough capacity in the transit system to absorb all the new passengers who come flocking when their cars get too expensive. If the capacity’s not there, they just keep their cars and find ways to squeeze the extra money out of their families’ budgets. Crilly claims that Translink’s system, as it stands, has enough excess capacity to absorb those new passengers. But as Stephen Rees pointed out a few days ago, we don’t hear a lot about excess capacity. The Expo Line? The B-Lines? The 44? No excess capacity.

Now, Crilly says his assessment of excess capacity is informed by data that us plebs don’t get to see. Fair enough, I guess. He’s the transportation commissioner and I’m not. But this claim about excess capacity is central enough to his big-picture argument — and at the same time, it seems weird enough — that I really wish he’d shown his work.

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10 Responses to “Excess capacity? Really? Where?”

When I was in school you either got partial credit or none at all if you didn’t show your work.

I’m sure there’s lots of excess capacity south of the Fraser, especially in South Delta. I can’t think of any strategy to fill those buses, however. People in Tsawwassen can afford to drive everywhere and don’t even contribute their fair share of gas taxes to the region because many of them fill up in Point Roberts.

As you note, however, the busiest routes are packed during peak hours and that’s where further investment needs to be made. Fortunately the driver of a paired LRT vehicle can move 5 times as many passengers as a B-Line bus driver so there is a way to effectively lower operating costs provided someone is willing to fork over the money to lay tracks on Broadway.

David — I have to say, those are my thoughts too. There could be excess capacity in routes in such transit-unfriendly places that no one takes the bus. There’s also, of course, lots of excess capacity going the wrong way at rush hour on routes where the buses shuttle back and forth doing both directions on the same route. And there’s excess capacity in the middle of the day and later at night.

I’m sure there are clever ways of encouraging people to ride at off-peak times, rather than at rush hour. But still, a transit system needs capacity at rush hour: excess capacity at other times and places isn’t really going to accommodate the new demand created by making driving more expensive. . . .

Unfortunately the transit system alone cannot do much to alter or spread out peak travel demands. The vast majority of us are tied to standard business hours or school hours and have little choice but to travel when we do. I was a 10-6 worker for the past few years so I didn’t have to deal with the worst of the rush hours, but I’m now responsible for getting a child to school in the morning so I’m on the transit system an hour earlier than before. A graduated fare system would do nothing to change my hours of travel.

Having said that some demand can be managed. There is a small, but noticeable spike in traffic on SkyTrain around 6:30PM that I believe is caused by the disappearance of multi-zone fares. For people going to Zone 3 the fare is cut in half.

In the old days mid-day fares were lower than peak fares. This seemed fair to me because there are fewer transit vehicles in use during the day and thus the cost of delivery is lower. I really think fares should once again be tied to the cost of delivering the service. I also believe fares need to better reflect distance travelled. However both ideas make the fare chart much more complicated for visitors and those without smart cards.

On that point I’d like to use an example. From downtown to 41st and Knight there are three efficient paths that require almost exactly the same amount of time.
(1) Take the #22 bus
(2) Take Canada Line to Oakridge and then either the #41 or #43 east
(3) Take Expo Line to Joyce and then either the #41 or #43 west

Currently all three pay the same fare despite consuming differing resources and travelling differing distances on the transit system. Even though it’s physically longest, there are good reasons to choose the third one. Will I have to pay more in the future? Should I?

A possible answer is to move to time based fares. If I spend half an hour on transit I should pay more than someone who hops on for just 5 minutes. However, that makes it even more crazy for a casual user or visitor to the city and could theoretically reduce revenue for TransLink because the 5 minute fare couldn’t be $2.50 like the current 90 minute 1-zone fare. It would also raise the spectre of paying more for buses that get caught in traffic jams. The very people doing the most to reduce congestion would have to pay the most and that really wouldn’t be fair.

Thanks for this! I’ve wondered why Translink doesn’t a more fine-grained fare system or different times of the day. As you say, there’s the complexity, and I think I want to take that very seriously. People won’t take the bus if it’s hard. But I wonder if there are ways of structuring more complicated fares, so that only regular (and thus higher-information) transit users are affected? E.g., could there be a deeply discounted monthly pass that wasn’t valid at peak hours? (I’m assuming someone buying a monthly pass knows their way around the fare structure and isn’t going to be confused by something like this.)

The South Delta routes are a perfect example of the “carrot” approach failing. The service is there far in excess of demand, yet it has done nothing to get people out of their cars.

What does that tell us about providing the service first and then punishing drivers? Is South Delta a failure simply because the punishment isn’t harsh enough yet? Do the buses not go where the people want them to? Is South Delta mostly populated by snobs who refuse to “slum it” on the bus?

What does the South Delta example tell us about expanding service to other low density “bedroom” communities in Surrey, Langley, etc? Is bus service to the Morgan Creek area doomed to fail before it even reaches the drawing board?

zweisystem consistently tells us that there’s no such thing as a measure of density that’s required before transit service makes sense, but doesn’t this prove that low density areas simply don’t produce enough transit riders?

I’d love to hear some theories that can explain why South Delta is such a failure when similar, physically isolated, low density areas in Coquitlam are screaming for transit and why the buses are full in parts of Vancouver where even basement suites cost more than $1000/month and houses go for two or three times as much as places in Tsawwassen.

David — I just posted a reply to a few of your questions above. But I wanted to mention one other point here.

why the buses are full in parts of Vancouver where even basement suites cost more than $1000/month and houses go for two or three times as much as places in Tsawwassen.

I actually think the answer to this question is pretty clear. Homes close to transit are undersupplied in metro Vancouver, as they are in most cities in North America. The excess demand for those homes pushes up prices and rents, and consequently more people want to live near transit than can afford to.

There was interesting study about this situation in various US cities:

“could there be a deeply discounted monthly pass that wasn’t valid at peak hours? ”

Yes. the true is that an overcrowded system at 8am doesn’t means there is lack of capacity.
That is true for road space like it is for public transit space…All need to be regulated by proper transport demand management (or yield management), and should be applied to public transit as well.

have a ~20% discounted pass valid only after 9am (and let say before 6am) could remove some load on the system, and attract new rider (especially the one working in shift, self employed,… where usually the inconvenience to travel off peak means low frequency, and doesn’t worth the trouble when at same time road are also “empty”.

By the way structure can be simple, because preventing off peak in the morning almost grant people will travel off peak in the afternoon too.

at the end capital cost of the system is based on peak period, so it is wise to do anything possible to relieve this period.
People traveling at 10am ride a bus purchased for the need of the 8am rush! (and cost only operating cost).